RingCentral Launches New Partner Program To Attract Resellers, MSP-Minded Partners

"Now more than ever, customers have really been looking for UCaaS and our partners can now execute faster when their customers want to move faster," Zane Long, RingCentral's channel chief, told CRN.

Unified communications-as-a-service powerhouse RingCentral is rolling out a brand-new program to give partners another way to work with RingCentral besides the firm's agent model and retain ownership of their customer relationships.

The IGNITE! Partner Program will target partners that want more participation in the sales cycle with SMB and mid-market customers, said Zane Long, senior vice president of global channel sales for RingCentral.

The new program joins RingCentral’s existing partner program it launched four years ago, Channel Harmony, which lets partners register leads to RingCentral and the UC firm handles the deal from there, including contract renewals and customer care on behalf of the partner, Long said.

[Related: New RingCentral Video Offering Will Help Businesses Confront Teleworking Surge]

"Some partners want to be more in control of the sales cycle and process, so we are giving them that control," he said. "Our partners now have choice -- you can continue to use channel harmony or you can be in charge of the education, contract execution, etc., with the help of RingCentral's sales engineers, which are always there to support partners."

Via the terms of the new The IGNITE! Partner Program, qualifying partners can act as RingCentral resellers for customers with up 400 employees initially, Long said. Qualified partners can provide quotes, access a dedicated remote team for sales support, and will be able to close deals with higher sales incentives, according to RingCentral.

Partners will enterprise customers or more complex deals will continue to run through RingCentral’s Channel Harmony program via an agent model for the company's cloud-based communication portfolio, the company said.

The IGNITE! Program's commission plan will include monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and spiff incentives, including a 6x MRR for prepaid accounts and a 7x spiff for contact center deals, Long said.

The new program will be especially helpful to partners in the field that want to immediately sign up customers for RingCentral's products, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has boosted adoption of UC and collaboration tools, Long said.

"Now more than ever, customers have really been looking for UCaaS and our partners can now execute faster when their customers want to move faster," he said.

To qualify for the IGNITE! Program, partners must become certified. Specific partners that want to also go beyond sales support and handle implementations and provisioning must complete training and a demonstration to prove their capabilities, Long said.

Channel-friendly RingCentral has about 10,000 partners in its Channel Harmony program today globally. The firm saw 62 percent year-over-year channel growth, RingCentral announced during its Q1 2020 earnings call in May.

Belmont, Calif.-based RingCentral last month introduced a new unified desktop application that offers tight integration between RingCentral's messaging, video, and phone services in one place. It will also let users switch from different devices while participating in video meetings, RingCentral told CRN.

RingCentral in April added a video product to its collaboration and contact center arsenal, RingCentral Video (RCV).